Future of Fitness

Eric Malzone sits down with Eric Bormel, Managing Director at Solomon Partners, for a deep dive into mergers and acquisitions in the fitness and wellness industry — breaking down exactly what it takes for a fitness brand, gym, or health tech company to get acquired, what drives valuation beyond revenue, and how founders can pick the right buyer instead of just the highest bidder. Using the recent Ruby-to-Zwift acquisition as a real-world case study, Bormel pulls back the curtain on the M&A process from first meeting to closing the deal, explains why connected fitness companies like Peloton are finally stabilizing after the post-pandemic crash, and shares why consumer subscription brands like Strava and Zwift — along with wearables like Whoop and Oura — are currently the hottest categories for investors in the fitness tech space. The conversation also tackles AI's growing role in personalized health, wearables, and gym operations, plus the widening gap between CEO confidence and consumer sentiment in today's economy. Whether you're a gym owner, fitness entrepreneur, or just curious about fitness industry trends and investment activity, this episode is a crash course in fitness M&A, business valuation, and where smart money is heading next in health and wellness. Episode Takeaways: 💰 M&A 101 — the difference between intrinsic value (cash flow) and extrinsic value (revenue/EBITDA multiples) when valuing a fitness business 🤝 Picking the Right Buyer — why trust matters more than the highest offer, and how to find a buyer aligned with your goals 📈 Inside the Ruby-Zwift Deal — a real case study breaking down how a major fitness tech acquisition actually comes together ⏳ The M&A Timeline — why a typical deal takes 6 months (and sometimes years of relationship-building beforehand) 🚴 Connected Fitness Comeback — how Peloton and the connected fitness category clawed back to profitability after the post-COVID crash ⌚ Wearables on the Rise — why Whoop and Oura are pulling in serious capital and customers in the health tech space 🏋️ What Buyers Want Now — why consumer subscription brands with strong data and loyal users are winning over enterprise SaaS 🤖 AI in Fitness and Wellness — how AI is reshaping personalization, wearables, virtual care, and the member experience (without replacing the workout itself) 📊 CEO Confidence vs. Consumer Sentiment — the surprising economic disconnect happening right now and what it means for fitness businesses 🚀 Founder Advice — how to know when your business is actually ready to sell, and what really drives a successful exit OUR SPONSORS: 🔗 Perfect Gym: https://www.perfectgym.com/en 🔗 EGYM: https://egym.com/int

In this episode of Future of Fitness, host Eric Malzone sits down with Dr. Tania Elliott—board-certified physician, three-time Chief Medical Officer, and a leading voice in healthcare innovation—to break down the collision course between the fitness industry and the future of preventative health. Dr. Elliott doesn't hold back: she calls out the fitness world for being too intense or too dainty, challenges the gatekeeping role of primary care, and paints a vivid picture of what the health club of the future should really look like. From the over-reliance on protocols and biohacking to the untapped power of community, nutrition, and strength training for women, this conversation is a bold, no-BS look at how fitness can evolve from a destination into a way of life. If you're ready to rethink everything you know about health, wellness, and the role of gyms in healthcare, this one's for you. 📌 Key Takeaways: 🏋️‍♀️ Fitness as the Top of the Healthcare Funnel – Gyms and wellness communities are the ideal entry point for prevention, engagement, and longevity—not traditional primary care. 🩺 Primary Care is Broken – It's a gatekeeping loss leader. The future is direct-to-consumer labs, telehealth, and real-time biomarker feedback without the waiting room. 🧠 Doctors as Advocates, Not Gatekeepers – Health information is no longer locked behind MD degrees. Physicians need to meet patients where they are and embrace patient-led research. 🔬 Stop Over-Protocolizing Everything – Not every trend needs a study. Use common sense, evolutionary context, and ancient practices like Ayurveda to guide wellness decisions. 🍽️ Food is Fuel—But Not Just Protein Powder – Whole foods, seasonal eating, and regenerative farming matter more than supplements. The fitness industry should teach cooking, not just sell shakes. 💪 Women's Strength Training is Non-Negotiable – Women need hardcore strength work too—not just Pilates and pink dumbbells. Programs must account for female biomechanics and hormonal cycles. 🏠 Health Should Be a Way of Life, Not a Destination – From "fart walks" after meals to lawn mowing parties, movement should blend into everyday life with community and joy at the center. 📱 Social Media is the New Health Classroom – With 60M+ monthly views, Dr. Elliott proves that bite-sized, educational content is the most scalable way to drive real behavior change. 🤖 AI is Democratizing Health Information – 230M weekly ChatGPT health queries show people are hungry for answers. The opportunity: use AI responsibly, not as a replacement, but as a starting point. 🚀 Be Bold About the Future – The fitness industry should stop apologizing for not being "healthcare" and instead design the care model of tomorrow—with community, labs, referrals, and real connection points.

In this quarterly industry roundtable, Eric Malzone, Juliet Starrett, and Alex Alimanestianu dive deep into the fitness sector's biggest earnings reports and emerging trends. Lifetime Fitness continues its premium brand strategy with impressive revenue growth while strategically shedding lower-tier memberships, but Planet Fitness faces headwinds with declining membership growth and a paused price increase. The team dissects Xponential's mounting troubles as the company burns through cash amid a New York AG settlement, while Garmin's fitness segment absolutely crushes it with 42% revenue growth. CrossFit's future looks brighter with Bruce Edwards returning as CEO—an affiliate owner who actually understands the community. The conversation heats up around retatrutide's bariatric-level weight loss outcomes and what GLP-1s mean for the fitness industry's identity, plus Peter Attia's meta-analysis proving two weekly resistance training sessions deliver 77% of maximal gains. From Peloton's Pilates pivot to Aescape's robotic massage collapse, this episode covers the strategic shifts, financial realities, and cultural transformations reshaping fitness in 2026. 🎯 Key Takeaways: 📈 Lifetime Fitness – Premium strategy working: revenue up 12%, average revenue per member at $930. Shedding low-tier medical memberships while raising prices, but can they keep growing without membership expansion? 🔻 Planet Fitness – Rough quarter: membership growth down 30% YoY, full‑year guidance cut. January marketing missed the mark, and their $5 black card price hike got paused. Competition heating up in the South. 🔥 Xponential – Dumpster fire status: same‑store sales negative two quarters straight, $523M debt vs. $21.5M cash. New York AG settlement for misleading franchisees. Strategic review likely means selling Club Pilates. 📊 Garmin – Absolute powerhouse: fitness segment up 42% revenue, 103% operating income. Natural Cycles integration for female athletes. A GPS company dominating wearables with $4.3B cash on hand—IPO market take note. 🚴 Peloton – First revenue growth since 2024 ($663M, up 1%). Free cash flow positive at $151M. Acquired $8K Pilates reformer company Scope, but membership declines persist. Cost‑cutting worked—now can they grow? 🏋️ CrossFit – Bruce Edwards returns as CEO (former affiliate owner, COO 2013‑2019, Planet Fitness franchise operator). Sale to Berkshire Partners is off. Games strategy and HyROX relationship are key early questions. 💊 Retatrutide – The new weight loss king: 70‑pound average loss (30% body weight) in trials. Fitness industry must pivot from "weight loss" to "health and strength" positioning. GLP‑1s are here to stay. 💪 Peter Attia Meta‑Analysis – Two resistance sessions/week delivers 77% of max strength gains. Behavioral barriers > programmatic barriers. Simple, consistent training beats perfect programming every time. 🤖 Aescape – Robotic massage startup with $157M raised goes insolvent. First‑mover disadvantage. Product was good, execution was costly. AI wellness is coming but distribution matters. 📱 Strava + AI – Claude integration and AI workout summaries are early days but coming fast. Personalized recommendations and trend analytics will reshape how we engage with fitness data.

What does it actually take to build a thriving HYROX program inside your gym — and turn it into a serious revenue engine? In this episode of Future of Fitness, host Eric Malzone sits down with David Magida, Global Head of Training at HYROX, to unpack everything gym owners and operators need to know about getting into the fastest-growing fitness sport in the world. David shares how he went from running a boutique gym in DC — nearly losing it all during COVID — to overseeing a global affiliate network of nearly 16,000 gyms. From the electric energy of a 40,000-athlete HYROX event in London, to the step-by-step framework for launching a HYROX program (whether you're crawling, walking, or sprinting), David breaks down the real business case: premium add-on memberships, ads that outperform at 3-to-1, 50% of gym revenue tied to HYROX, and a community so tight your members become your best salespeople. If you're a gym owner sitting on the fence about HYROX, this is the episode that will get you off it. 🏟️ HYROX events are exploding — from 40,000 athletes at the London EMEA Championships to 50,000 participants at the NYC event, the sport's growth shows zero signs of slowing 🏋️ Crawl, walk, run your way in — you don't need to drop $150K on equipment on day one; start with one class per week and build from there 🔥 Authenticity is everything — your coaches and head trainers need to actually race and train in HYROX; members will see right through a program with no real passion behind it 📐 Four class types to know — Foundational, Engine, Power, and Complete make up the full HYROX training methodology, each targeting a different fitness pillar 💰 The money is very real — David's HYROX program now accounts for ~50% of his gym's total revenue, and coaches he's mentored have hit $100K in six months 📣 HYROX ads convert at 3x — paid ads for HYROX programming dramatically outperform other gym program ads because people are actively searching for race training 🤝 Community = retention — HYROX athletes form tight-knit cohorts, plan group runs, share race results, and become your most powerful referral source 🛠️ Equipment investment pays off — Center's free gym layout and floor plan design service (developed in partnership with HYROX) removes a major barrier and replaces what used to cost $40K in architect fees 📈 Nearly 16,000 global affiliates and climbing — the affiliate program has scaled from basic PDF workouts to a full tech-enabled training ecosystem since David joined in late 2023 🎯 Every race keeps members locked in — once an athlete signs up for another race, you've secured them for another 6 months of consistent training and membership revenue OUR SPONSORS: 🔗 Perfect Gym: https://www.perfectgym.com/en 🔗 EGYM: https://egym.com/

In this episode of The Future of Fitness, host Eric Malzone sits down with Erik Jivmark, CEO of Sleep Cycle, to discuss how passive tracking technology is transforming the health and wellness industry. For 15 years, Sleep Cycle has been quietly analyzing a millennium of sleep every single night, leveraging audio and advanced machine learning algorithms to map sleep stages with the same precision as leading wearable hardware. Now, the company is democratizing this massive data layer by opening up its seamless Sleep SDK to developers, health apps, and IoT providers worldwide. Erik shares the brand's incredible origin story—from an iPhone taped to a bed to a global network tracking millions of nights—and pulls back the curtain on their upcoming FDA-regulated clinical validation study aimed at diagnosing sleep apnea risk with just a single night of phone-based audio tracking. Whether you are building an AI health coach, looking to scale passive monitoring, or eager to understand why sleep is the ultimate foundational layer of longevity, this conversation explores how the future of public health belongs to frictionless, hardware-free technology. 🎧 Episode Takeaways: 📱 Frictionless Tracking: Discover how Sleep Cycle bypasses data fatigue and heavy hardware costs by turning any smartphone into a highly precise, passive health sensor. 🫁 Revolutionizing Sleep Apnea Detection: A deep dive into their upcoming FDA submission for a software-only tool capable of screening sleep apnea risk in a single night. 🔓 The Open Sleep SDK: Learn how innovators, telemedicine providers, and even smart-home companies are integrating Sleep Cycle's 15 years of machine learning data into their own apps within weeks. 📊 Fueling the Future of AI Health: Why shallow AI coaching fails without long-term behavioral data, and how a live global network of breathing and coughing signals provides the ultimate context for clinical innovation. 🤝 The Collaborators-Win Mindset: Why Sleep Cycle is looking beyond its own consumer app to place its powerful diagnostics everywhere consumers already live, run, and track their fitness. OUR SPONSORS: 🔗 Perfect Gym: https://www.perfectgym.com/en 🔗 EGYM: https://egym.com/